The Hon. Charles Russell, of England, said in 1912 that 12,000,000 of England’s 45,000,000 population were on the verge of starvation—shall we be satisfied with that?
A recent investigation into the causes of the shockingly high rate of infant mortality in Germany[[1]] shows that “the children of poverty hunger before they are born. They come into the world ill-developed, weaker than the children of plenty, and with such low resistant powers that infant mortality rages in their ranks like an epidemic.” Shall we be satisfied with that?
[1]. “The Proletarian Child,” by Albert Langon, published in Berlin.
Here in the United States millions of men cannot get work, while millions of men, women and children are compelled to work for starvation wages. Shall we be satisfied with that?
The census reports show that most people do not own the roofs over their heads, having nothing but the clothes upon their backs and their meager furniture. Shall we be satisfied with that?
We are creating wealth rapidly, but what we make is concentrating into so few hands that a few men hold us as in the hollow of their hands, telling us whether we may work, telling us what wages we shall receive if we work, telling us how much we shall pay for meat, sugar, lumber, clothing, salt and steel. Shall we be satisfied with that?
The Stanley Steel Committee’s investigations showed that, by a system of interlocking directorates, eighteen men control thirty-five billions of industrial property—a third of the entire national wealth. Shall we be satisfied with that?
In times of industrial depression more than 5,000,000 men who want to work are refused the right to do so, because the few men who control everything cannot see a profit for themselves in letting 5,000,000 men work to support themselves. Shall we be satisfied with that?
The cost of living, mounting higher and higher, is crowding an increasing number of unorganized workers into the bottomless pit in which men, women and children suffer the tortures of hell. Shall we be satisfied with that?
Mr. Morgan, with the tremendous money-power that is behind him, is a greater power in this country than the President of the United States, or the Congress of the United States. Shall we be satisfied with that?